Miuller and lamentable Britishness

[William Ryan]

Professor Denner,
No need to apologize to your British colleagues for the "lamentable" comment.
"on Grey's mare" and other such expressions used to give rise to a great deal of
puzzlement and mirth among English students as well. The problem with Russian
dictionaries at that time was not that they tended to 'British' English,
although that was largely true, but that they were compiled without any sense of
current usage so that 'colloquial' examples were often bizarre and decades, even
centuries, out of date. Try 'dudki: rats; yes, over the left; don't you wish
that you may get it'  (I quote from memory) - an entry which nowadays probably
baffles Russians and English speakers of all persuasions, or Smirnitskii's 'he
lies like a gasmeter' s.v. merin.
And thanks for your list of useful sites.
Will Ryan
Warburg Institute

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